A day after the United States and its EU and Japanese allies unveiled fresh punitive measures for what was seen as Russian interference in Ukraine, violence worsened on the ground.
Thousands of pro-Moscow protesters in the city of Lugansk near the Russian border seized control of the regional administrative building, trapping around 200 riot police in the complex's courtyard. Militants in the city already held the local SBU security services building.
Ukrainian media reported that rebels also seized the town hall in the nearby town of Pervomaisk, adding to more than a dozen sites held by pro-Kremlin insurgents. On Monday, gunmen took control of the town of Kostyantynivka. There was also no sign of progress in negotiations by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe to free seven of its inspectors being held by pro-Kremlin rebels.
The US embassy said the OSCE abductions and a violent attack Monday by pro-Russian militants armed with knives and bats on pro-Kiev demonstrators in the east Ukraine city of Donetsk were acts of "terrorism, pure and simple".
- Sanctions a 'boomerang' -
Moscow reacted with fury to the inclusion in the sanctions of high-tech exports to Russia and threatened reprisals.
"If their aim is to deliver a blow to Russia's rocket-building sector, then by default, they would be exposing their astronauts on the ISS," Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said, according to the Interfax news agency.
"Sanctions are always a boomerang which come back and painfully hit those who launched them," added Rogozin on a visit to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in March.
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